Generally, the industry of semiconductor manufacturing involves highly complex techniques for integrating circuits into semiconductor materials. Due to the large number of processing steps and the decreasing size of semiconductor devices, the semiconductor manufacturing process is prone to processing defects that decrease device yields. Testing procedures to eliminate these processing defects from the processing steps are therefore critical for maintaining high yielding production facilities. Since the testing procedures are an integral and significant part of the manufacturing process, the semiconductor industry constantly seeks more sensitive and efficient testing procedures.
Automated semiconductor measurement, including testing, metrology and inspection, has proven to be an effective tool in reducing processing defects. However, as semiconductor devices increase in density and complexity, semiconductor measurement has likewise become more complex. Software automation techniques have eased the burden, but only partially so. In fact, significant resources are increasingly dedicated to merely setting up the measurement tools used to perform semiconductor measurement tasks at various steps during fabrication.
In response, a paradigm known as a semiconductor measurement “recipe” is being increasingly used by measurement setup engineers to collect all the various information a measurement tool needs to accomplish its assigned tasks. In particular, the recipe holds parameters that define what semiconductor/wafer is to be measured and how it will be measured.
At present, recipes are typically created by a setup engineer dressed in a cleanroom suit standing at an actual measurement tool with the physical wafer to be measured loaded on the tool. The setup engineer leads the tool through a setup or training process to teach and record the recipe which describes the layout of the wafer, what the process layer looks like, how to align the wafer on the stage, and what to do with the results. The setup engineer must repeat all the same training steps for the next layer wafer often collecting redundant recipe parameter information. Again for the next device, or on different tools, or with slightly different goals, the setup engineer is often forced to repeat much of the previous work again and again.
This is repetitive redundant work costly in manpower and tool costs and it allows more opportunity for human and tool errors during all the setup processes. The result is often costly, unreliable, poor performing tool recipes.